Lindsay MacKinnon
EDC 430
Teaching Rationale
9/21/09
Teaching science has always been the ultimate job to me. You get to engage your students in multiple forms of hands-on learning with a wide variety of material. The most important part about science is the idea of experimentation and using it to teach your students the basic concepts and ideas behind science.
To me, teaching is a way of interacting with your students and discovering their learning "quirks". In order to teach science, or any discipline, one must be able to individually examine each student and discover what works best in order to get them interested in learning the material. In learning about my future students, I hope that I will be able to capture their interest and imagination with a variety of learning strategies. Not all students are capable to learning in one specific way and I hope to be able to incorporate a variety of learning and teaching methods into my daily teaching style. This will allow my students to learn concepts and show them that science and learning are ever-changing.
As a teacher I also feel that one must have a certain level of caring. You must care about your students and their educational well-being. When you are more able to interact with your students and be on their level, you will be better able to see what captures their attention. But its not just about your students. One must also care about the effectiveness of one's own teaching style. If you are not able to step back and examine yourself, you will never be able to learn new methods for engaging your own students. I feel that accepting constructive criticism and using that to educate yourself on your teaching style is very important. Remaining rigid in your teaching style will hold up your students in the learning process. Continuous education is very important.
It's also not just about science. In the classroom, you will be able to teach them are variety of techniques and applications that could be used in their daily or future lives. They will learn rules and processes for following through and obtaining results for experiments. Every job out there today has a list of rules, regulations and expectations that they will be required to follow as employees. They will also learn to interact with fellow students in group assignments and projects. Being able to work with one's peers is very important. This will allow them to see another student's point-of-view and will allow them to open up and be able to look at various projects and ideas in a different light.
To me teaching is a way of opening up a student and allowing them to see different possibilities. In turn this will open up people to different views, whether it remain in science, or continue into other aspects of life, such as religion, political status, etc. In the end I hope to learn as much from my students as they are able to learn from me.
EDC 430
Teaching Rationale
9/21/09
Teaching science has always been the ultimate job to me. You get to engage your students in multiple forms of hands-on learning with a wide variety of material. The most important part about science is the idea of experimentation and using it to teach your students the basic concepts and ideas behind science.
To me, teaching is a way of interacting with your students and discovering their learning "quirks". In order to teach science, or any discipline, one must be able to individually examine each student and discover what works best in order to get them interested in learning the material. In learning about my future students, I hope that I will be able to capture their interest and imagination with a variety of learning strategies. Not all students are capable to learning in one specific way and I hope to be able to incorporate a variety of learning and teaching methods into my daily teaching style. This will allow my students to learn concepts and show them that science and learning are ever-changing.
As a teacher I also feel that one must have a certain level of caring. You must care about your students and their educational well-being. When you are more able to interact with your students and be on their level, you will be better able to see what captures their attention. But its not just about your students. One must also care about the effectiveness of one's own teaching style. If you are not able to step back and examine yourself, you will never be able to learn new methods for engaging your own students. I feel that accepting constructive criticism and using that to educate yourself on your teaching style is very important. Remaining rigid in your teaching style will hold up your students in the learning process. Continuous education is very important.
It's also not just about science. In the classroom, you will be able to teach them are variety of techniques and applications that could be used in their daily or future lives. They will learn rules and processes for following through and obtaining results for experiments. Every job out there today has a list of rules, regulations and expectations that they will be required to follow as employees. They will also learn to interact with fellow students in group assignments and projects. Being able to work with one's peers is very important. This will allow them to see another student's point-of-view and will allow them to open up and be able to look at various projects and ideas in a different light.
To me teaching is a way of opening up a student and allowing them to see different possibilities. In turn this will open up people to different views, whether it remain in science, or continue into other aspects of life, such as religion, political status, etc. In the end I hope to learn as much from my students as they are able to learn from me.